Drug testing in the United States began in the late 1980s with the testing of certain federal employees and specified DOT regulated occupations. Drug testing guidelines and processes, in these areas exclusively, are established and regulated (by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA, formerly under the direction of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or NIDA) require that companies who use professional drivers, specified safety sensitive transportation and/or oil and gas related occupations, and certain federal employers, test them for the presence of certain drugs.
These test classes were established decades ago, and include five specific drug groups. They do not account for current drug usage patterns. For example, the tests do not include semi-synthetic opioids, such as oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, etc., compounds that are highly abused in America:

While SAMHSA/NIDA guidelines only allow labs to report quantitative results for the "NIDA-5" on their official NIDA tests, many drug testing labs and on-site tests
also offer a wider or "more appropriate" set of drug screens which are more reflective of current drug abuse patterns. As noted above, these tests include synthetic
pain killers such as Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, Restoril) and
barbiturates in other drug panels (a "panel" is a
predetermined list of tests to run). The
confirmation test (usually
GCMS) can tell the difference between chemically similar
drugs such as methamphetamine and ecstasy, and in the absence of detectable amounts of methamphetamine in the sample, the lab will either report the sample as negative or
report it as positive for
MDMA. What the lab reports to the client depends upon whether MDMA was included in the
panel as something to be tested for.

NIDA 5 Drug Test Cassette

Description

This is a 5 panel drug test cassette device that tests for 5 different drugs in a single drug test cassette. This urine test device detects: amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana (THC), opiates and phencyclidine (PCP).

With the recent increase of those smoking marijuana (due to the relaxed marijuana laws) many employers and parents at home are using the NIDA 5 drug test. The NIDA 5 drug test covers a wide range of drugs of abuse such as heroin (shows up positive on the opiate screen), PCP (angel dust), marijuana (cannabis), cocaine (rock, snow), meth (shows up positive on the amphetamines screen).

Home Drug Test - quick, easy to use drug tests for the home, office or anywhere drug testing is needed.

Marijuana Drug Test - the most popular drug test, testing for the most popular drug: marijuana (cannabis, weed, blunt, 420).

Testing’s confirmation technology is highly sensitive and specific. Confirmation testing is an important tool for physicians, as it can provide more in-depth
information about patient compliance. A confirmation test is a secondary analysis performed using completely different technology than the initial method. It is used to
confirm the presence of a specific drug, or further pinpoint which drug made the initial result positive. When a person tests positive for a family of drugs such as opiates,
confirmation testing provides specific information about which drug in a class triggered the positive result. For example if you prescribe oxycodone for a patient and their
initial screening test is positive for opiates you will still need to know whether the prescribed oxycodone caused the positive opiate result. Confirmation testing will
provide the necessary information to confirm your patient’ s compliance with their treatment program or help you identify any other reason that your patient might have
tested positive for opiates.

In addition to providing information about the specific drug or substance present, confirmation testing cutoff levels are lower than screening cutoff levels and that means
confirmation tests will detect medications and drugs at lower levels.

Finally, confirmation tests are extremely important as it relates to proper patient documentation. You need to be sure and have the right amount of information when making
treatment decisions. A toxicology program that incorporates screening and confirmation technologies like those employed by Essential Testing protects the patient, the
physician, and the public because physicians can adequately monitor compliance and detect noncompliance.